Category Archives: Cheese Making

Limited Edition Ultimate Cheese Press in Cherry Hardwood

Just in time for Cyber Monday sales! We’re blogging a little early this week to bring you our newest product. Yes! Another new product. It’s great to give as a gift or keep as a treat to yourself.

Jerri has commissioned a limited edition run of 25 Ultimate Cheese Presses made in cherry hardwood. They are beautiful! It’s first come, first served and a few have already sold. The sale price is in effect now and it continues through the end of December, 2014 or until all 25 presses are sold.

Ultimate Cheese Press made with cherry hardwood

Our cheese press is made for home cheese makers, designed and manufactured by Jerri Bedell, the owner of Homesteader’s Supply right here in the USA! Made from a beautiful grained cherry hardwood with various shades of darker marbling. Each press is as unique as the wood its made from. Cherry darkens as it ages and becomes even more beautiful. This wood is sturdy, solid and long lasting. It’s treated with organic coconut oil and is stamped with our logo.

Are you new to making cheese? We have a recipe for a very nice cheddar to help you get started. Farmhouse Cheddar. If you’d like to print the recipe you can find the pdf file there. Download it to your computer, send it to the printer, and pick it up on the way to the kitchen.

Let’s celebrate Independence Day with a sale worthy of fireworks!

We’re proud of our American made products. Made in the USA, they keep our dollars in not just our country but in our communities. That’s cause for celebration!

We’ll start our sale with a store-wide$10 coupon on purchases over $99. Enter code USA4th in the box at checkout. The code is good starting today through Sunday, July 6th, 2014.

The following items are marked at their sale price on the website and the prices are set until the end of July.

The Ultimate Cheese Press

The Ultimate Cheese Press is made for home cheese makers, designed and manufactured by the owner of Homesteaders Supply right here in the USA! Made from a beautiful grained hard maple, with a lighter basic color with various shades of darker marbling. Each press is as unique as the wood its made from. $165, the lowest price we’ve been able to offer in a long time.

Our new video by Wardeh Harmon, founder of GNOWFGLINS, is in and features a press treated with organic coconut oil.

Italian Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit

Italian Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit

This Italian Mozzarella Cheesemaking kit is for making real Italian Mozzarella and is exclusively from Homesteader’s Supply! Most mozzarella recipes call for using citric acid, vinegar or lemon.. making your cheese in about 30 minutes, an easy way to get what you want fast. But, if you would like to try an old fashioned way to make the best mozzarella you have ever tasted, try our kit where the recipe uses a special Italian culture instead of citric acid, that adds a very unique old-world flavor to this cheese. And of course, the extra time involved making this cheese also enhances the great flavor. $53.50

Squeezo Strainer and Sauce Maker – Delux

Making homemade tomato sauce, applesauce and preserves is no longer a chore when you use the All Metal Squeezo Strainer and Sauce Maker, now with Stainless Steel Screens! The Squeezo Strainer made by Best Products today is the same as the old Garden Way Squeezo Strainer later made by Lemra Products. Made the same as it was 25-30 years ago and still made in the USA.

Cherry Pitter Deluxe

Cherry Pitter Delux

Delux Cherry Pitter. Made in the USA! Now on sale at $199.00AND we give you free shipping!

New and improved Cherry Pitter that will easily remove the pits of five cherries at a time, even the largest diameter cherries. It is USA Made and is all stainless steel. The design easily removes the pits without losing the cherries’ juice. With a quick pull of the handle the stones are discarded and the cherries drop into a container below.

We give you personalized service, with added instructions for cleaning the natural, organic way, and we are available to help you with any questions you have about the set up and use of our product. We don’t just say that we give you good customer service…we actually do it!

The Ultimate Cheese Press is our pride and joy. Designed by Jerri Bedell, founder of Homesteader’s Supply and is manufactured by another American company. We’re happy to tell you that we’ve made a change in how our presses are oiled.

We’ve been testing organic non-GMO cold pressed coconut oil and we are very happy with the results. Coconut oil is thicker, soaks into the wood well, and stands up to the acidic nature of whey in cheese making. Presses being shipped now have been treated with coconut oil but If you’d like to order a raw press (not oiled) please request it when you order.

The Ultimate Cheese Press

Next time you need to treat our press you should follow these steps.

Wash the wood with warm, soapy water. Wash all indentations and where bolts meet wood well.

Air dry for a minimum of four hours, overnight if possible. Be sure the wood is completely dry.

Using a lint-free cloth, apply a heavy coat of coconut oil. Place oiled pieces on lint-free cloth or paper towel while the wood absorbs the oil and the oil solidifies. Fold your cloth into small sections that can be pressed into the grooves.

Let the pieces sit for an hour or two before wiping clean with a lint-free cloth.

Inspect all pieces closely. If you’ve missed a spot or the coating of oil is uneven, repeat steps three through five.

Oiling The Ultimate Cheese Press

You should hand wash your press with warm (not hot), lightly soapy water after use. Never soak the wood. Be sure to let the pieces dry thoroughly before reassembling the press to store.

Cheese making day was a blast! I’m Robin, the social media manager at Homesteader’s Supply. My daughter Taylor and our friend Tammy joined me for a day of cheese making. Tammy brought four gallons of fresh, raw, whole milk and we put it to good use.

The first batch of cheese was Cottage. The milk got too warm too fast but the cheese turned out well anyway. It was drier than expected. Was that because of the temperature problem? We don’t know. Tammy added heavy cream at the end to improve the texture and it was perfect. The texture is much more coarse and less wet than store bought cottage cheeses we’ve had. We liked it much better.

These creamy curds formed on top of the whey

Draining the whey

Cottage Cheese

Our second batch was Farmer’s Cheese. This is a lot like cottage cheese without culture. Use a gallon of milk warmed to room temperature. Stir in 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Let the curds and whey separate. Pour off the whey, saving it for another use. Add salt to taste. Salt is a preservative but we agreed that we’d eat our cheeses long before they had a chance to spoil. Wrap the curds in fine cheese cloth and hang to drip for an hour or so.

Farmer’s Cheese with Garlic & Chive seasoning

There was a lot of whey waiting to be used so we made traditional Ricotta. By heating the whey and adding vinegar we separated more solids from whey. The texture wasn’t as smooth as store bought Ricotta, and the flavor was great. We used the whey from the Cottage cheese for the first batch of traditional Ricotta. The second batch was with whey from Farmer’s Cheese, and was disappointing. There was so little left in that whey that it made about two tablespoons worth of ricotta.

Taylor seasoned the traditional Ricotta with basil pesto. It is fantastic as a side to scrambled eggs!

We wanted more Ricotta so our last batch was Whole Milk Ricotta, a lot like Farmer’s Cheese. “Rustic” describes it well. It wasn’t as smooth and creamy as we expected. Taylor roasted a red bell pepper to use in a marinade. She mixed extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, chives and sage, bay leaves, salt and a little fresh ground black pepper and let it set while the cheese dripped. Spectacular! We will definitely make this often, especially when we’re entertaining.

We’ll be making cheese again soon. Up next – Farmhouse Cheddar!

We’ve been using the whey in sour dough bread, rice and quinoa. It’s a nice bonus from cheese making.

Keep the milk at 86 degrees. Stir the rennet mixture into milk slowly but thoroughly. Allow milk to set undisturbed for 30 – 45 minutes or until curd shows a clean break.

Using long knife, cut the curds into 1/2 inch squares, then stir gently just to break the strips of curds into chunks. Let it sit to rest for 5 minutes.

Slowly heat the curds and whey to 102 degrees, raising the temperature 2 degrees every 5 minutes. Stir curd gently to prevent matting and reduce their size to half peanut size. A large whisk works well by placing it to bottom of pot and putting up right so curds break as they fall through the wisk. Hold curds for additional 30 minutes at this temperature

Place pre-warmed with hot water colander over a pot and pour the curds into it.

Reserve 1/3 of the whey and pour back into the cheese pot. Set colander of curds onto the cheese pot. Cover top with cheese cloth and lid to keep in warmth. Allow curds to drain for 45 to 60 minutes. This is called the cheddaring process.

Cut slab into pieces and press through french fry cutter or cut by hand.

Add 1 tablespoon course salt. Using your hands, gently mix the salt into curds. You can eat these curds now, or press into a wheel.

Place the curds into cheese press and follow the directions for dressing with cheese cloth for the next 12 hours.

Remove cheese from press, unwrap the cloth, place cheese on drying mat to air dry for 12 hours, creating a nice skin over the whole cheese. Cheese is ready to slice and eat or you can wax and age for stronger cheddar flavor.

Mix 1 tablespoon of salt with 1/2 cup of water. Use a corner of the cheese cloth to lightly apply a saltwater wash to the cheese.